Fatal Crash Haunts Boca Businessman

That night, hours after the crash that ended six lives, scarred countless others and forever altered his own, Robert Carratelli asked his wife what had happened.

The Boca Raton businessman had no memory of his 1997 Mercedes slamming into the car crossing Yamato Road. The sound of the air bag exploding in his face, the sheer force that sent bodies flying across the road -- Carratelli could not remember any of it, his wife recalled.

"What happened?" he asked, watching the tears well up in Diane Carratelli's eyes. "You have to tell me what happened."

He wasn't prepared for the answer. The ad executive driving home to his wife and twin children on a Friday evening allegedly ran a red light and rammed a Mercury Grand Marquis carrying three couples who were leaving a retirement community for a night out. All six died instantly. Only Carratelli survived.

In his first interview since the June 4 crash, the 43-year-old father of two said he's especially haunted by thoughts of children who will never see their parents or grandparents again. The anguish has been unceasing, eroding his sleep, crippling his ability to work and damaging his family life.

Now he may lose what little life he has left: the freedom to watch his children grow, and the remnants of a once successful advertising business.

Trial scheduled

Police say Carratelli was barreling down Yamato Road at almost 80 mph when he ran a red light just west of Florida's Turnpike and plowed into Neil Marvin's car. If convicted on six counts each of manslaughter and vehicular homicide when he goes to trial May 1, he faces life in prison. Two families of the victims also have filed civil suits that likely will dog him for years to come.

"No matter how you look at it, I was still driving that car. It happened on my watch," Carratelli said. "How do you make up for six souls?"

His doctors and attorneys don't have an answer, but they think they can explain what happened that night. They are mounting a defense based on a medical condition that they say manifested itself for the first time that night and crippled his control at the wheel.

Called "orthostatic syncopy" and brought on by the diabetes doctors say has ravaged his body for 17 years, it caused a blackout that prevented him from making rational decisions, three doctors testified in depositions taken last week.

Syncopy symptoms

Though doctors are just beginning to understand more about syncopy, the condition afflicts thousands of patients and causes hundreds of accidents a year, said Dr. Blair Grubb, an Ohio cardiologist and syncopy expert, in a March 29 deposition.

Carratelli was first diagnosed with syncopy by his family doctor three days after the crash. He has not driven since.

Grubb and two other defense experts say the condition sparked a precipitous drop in blood pressure that did not make him pass out but caused him to, as Grubb put it, "weird out" and "impaired his ability to make reasonable judgments."

"[T]he events that occurred are unfortunate, but I truly, in my heart of hearts and to the best of my medical knowledge, believe that ... [he] had no volitional control over the events that occurred," Grubb testified.

The attorneys representing the victims' children aren't buying it. If Carratelli had no control, they argue, how did he maneuver his speeding car around traffic and talk on the cell phone just minutes before the 6:55 p.m. wreck?

"The eyewitnesses just don't support the idea that someone was losing it, only that he was driving in a purposeful fashion without weaving, so that the real-world picture is of a car clearly under control," said Greg Barnhart, the attorney for the Inslers' children.

Attorney skeptical

"I think more likely he was on the telephone, he was in a hurry to get home, and the car's fun to drive, so he was flooring it down the straight-away," Barnhart said.

"I think it's an attempt by his well-paid attorneys and expert doctors to find some way to excuse Mr. Carratelli's behavior, and it's wholly inconsistent with the facts in the case."

Some among the victims' friends fear it might work. Irving Levenstein, who played poker with Neil Marvin, says he's worried that testimony about syncopy might be enough to plant reasonable doubt in a jury's mind.

"He [Carratelli] holds a very important position, and he must be a very intelligent man, so I'm sure he's well-rehearsed, especially with three doctors behind him," Levenstein said. "I don't see how he can lose this case."

The defense is no ruse, says Richard Lubin, one of Carratelli's criminal defense attorneys.